Chapter Nineteen: Echeladder to Heaven

I stared at the wooden puzzle ball. The puzzle ball that refused to be solved.

I hated that puzzle ball almost to the extent of thinking that it was sentient and somehow intentionally trying to make me feel like a dumbass. I almost wished that were true; then I'd be able to smash it and know that I was causing it unbearable pain. But it wasn't sentient, and all smashing the puzzle ball would accomplish would be…well, a smashed puzzle ball.

Today felt different, though. I had a fucked up dream, two nights ago. A really fucked up dream. And in my really fucked up dream, I was forced to fly out into space and create a massive current of energy, similar to a solar flare only without the whole 'sun' thing getting in the way. But there were things I remembered about using my Aspect in that way… I'd never used my Aspect that way before. Properly, that is.

Would I get different results from my puzzle ball if I tried it again?

It wasn't quite daylight, yet. Scales would be awake soon. I had the feeling that I'd just end up fucking everything up anyway if Scales was watching—that's just how the universe worked—so if I was gonna do this, I had to do it now. I took a deep breath, levitated the string, sent it into the entrance hole.

I felt the string travel down the first passage, then through a junction into another passage. Then it started to feel confusing again, and I forced myself to stop, take another deep breath. I remembered my dream, and I began to do what I'd done in outer space. I began to send out faint pulses of energy…and I was surprised to find that I could see the insides of the puzzle ball. And it turned out that it wasn't just a single ball—there were at least five or six layers in there and I found that each layer could move independently of the others. It reminded me of those Russian Matryoshka dolls, with all the smaller versions of itself beneath the surface; the puzzle ball, however, could not be opened. I could only imagine how it had been crafted…

I then realized that my 'wind shell' tactic I'd used against Scales, during our sparring bouts, was incredibly inefficient. Almost like using a nuclear power plant to charge your ipod. All I had to do was charge up the space around me a little bit, and I'd be able to sense incoming attacks from a mile away!

I also found that every time I'd tried to solve this puzzle ball in the past, my haphazard attempts would end up shifting around the different layers of the puzzle without my noticing. That was why it always seemed like the insides of the puzzle ball were moving…because, in a way, they were. I sent out several more faint pulses of energy, seeing which layers could be moved where. In the end, all I needed to do was shift all of the layers into alignment…and I was able to send the string straight through the center of the puzzle ball and out the other side. It had been so ridiculously easy that… I mean… I kinda felt like a-

"Fool."

I turned around. Scales obviously wasn't sleeping, anymore. I wondered how much he'd seen. "Come again?" I asked.

"You were thinking about how much of a fool you are feeling like," Glimmering Scales mused. "Everyone feelss like a fool after they ssolve a puzzle ball and realize how eassy it wass."

"Well, fool isn't quite what I was going for—kinda on the PG side—but yeah," I nodded. "Still sums it up pretty well."

"You actually ssolved it much more quickly than mosst of my brethren."

"What, how long did it take you?"

"Three yearss."

We ate a quick breakfast, and then we sparred. And this time, I found I was able to block virtually all of Scales's attacks. At first, at least. After Scales realized that I was able to sense everything he was throwing at me, he began to attack me more cautiously. Sometimes he would feint an attack to my front, only to sweep my legs out from under me. Other times, he would simply concentrate his Vis into a super-dense attack and overwhelm my more spread-out defenses. I wasn't getting my ass thrown around by the red-scaled consort like I normally did, but I could see that I clearly had a lot more to learn.

Then we got right back to it. This was the fifth day Scales and I have been tracking that buffalo herd from earlier in the week. We'd lost some ground yesterday because of the stunt Gino pulled with my dream self, but we picked up the pace today. We did not stop to spar for the rest of the morning. Our lunch comprised of nuts and some strange, yellow fruits that grew high up in the giant baobab trees. It wasn't a meal we needed to stop for, so we didn't. We kept right on going.

It wasn't the buffalo—Lifebeasts, whatever—themselves that were important, obviously. It had been Scales's idea to follow the herd. We had no idea how to find the consorts of the Desert Fires because there had been no contact with them for two hundred years. If they were still around, though, Scales figured our best shot of finding them would be to follow a buffalo herd.

The clans of the Desert Fires relied heavily on the buffalo herds for their way of life. Their hooves could be used for glue, their fat for soap, their hides for shelter and blankets, and, obviously, their meat served as the consorts' main source of food—at least, that's what Scales told me. It was no small wonder that the consorts referred to the buffalo as 'Lifebeasts'. And it was Scales's hope that the herd would lead us right to the elusive, nomadic plains clans.

Well, I hoped Scales was right. All this constant traveling was getting old. I just wanted to find these plains clans and get them onto the 'Let's Go Fuck Hyperion's Shit Up' bandwagon. Then we could start moving this whole quest thing along. Things were beginning to feel a bit stagnant.

We didn't stop until nightfall. And once we did, it was another fast meal, and then we were preparing for bed.

Before we went to sleep, however, there was something Scales wanted to show me. He had me stand facing him and instructed me to watch. A flame sprang into existence in front of Scales's face after he took a deep breath. The red-scaled consort was able to make it grow in size slightly before it fizzled out.

"Fire iss the mosst difficult manifesstation of the Vis," Glimmering Scales explained to me. "Only the wisesst of uss are able to exert enough control over it to use it as a weapon. Much focus iss needed to for fire to be created and maintained."

What Scales taught me was strikingly similar to what Gino made my dream self do just the other night.

Energy. That was the true meaning of the Force Aspect, I think. I mean, that does kinda make sense—energy is the driving force behind everything that works. Just ask anyone who's taken a physics class. And it turned out that creating fire was easier than I thought—it involved exciting the atoms, but not necessarily altering their charge. No, this had more to do with generating the energy required to amplify the already existing vibrations between the atoms to produce heat, and then-

Okay, this is really fucking weird how I was suddenly understanding jack shit about this. I mean, I've sat through all those science classes in middle and high school, and I've listened to the teachers drone on and on about atoms, about work and energy, about force, and all sorts of physics-related bullshit. The only reason I didn't flunk out of any of those classes was because I mastered the art of remembering enough random vocabulary terms to ace a test, then instantly forgetting it again once all was said and done. To say I understood any of it would have been a dirty lie.

And now here I was, explaining shit about atomic physics. Basic stuff, very basic, don't get me wrong…but for someone like me, a theatre kid who gives less than half a shit about any and all things science…

I remember one of the first things I'd learned about my Aspect was that it was like a muscle—I had to exercise it in order to become proficient with it. I guess everything I've been doing with Scales since we left the main village of Clan Nathair could be considered 'exercising' my Aspect—we've been sparring our asses off when we weren't busy chasing down buffalo herds. And even when we were chasing down buffalo herds, we still sparred when we could.

And remember, back when the underlings attacked our camp on the banks of the Forbidden River, how I mentioned that image of a ladder that I kept on seeing every time I killed a lot of imps and ogres? It was like an image of a tall ladder that kept on popping into my mind, but only the bottommost rungs had any color to them. The top four-fifths of this imaginary ladder were always dark, but now… After I solved the puzzle ball, and then right now, after I conjured my first flame… Over three-quarters of the ladder had come blazing to life.

And each rung had a title, too. They were weird, outlandish, abstract names… I couldn't really understand them. The one I was currently at was 'Pyro-Kenobi', whatever the fuck that was supposed to mean. I didn't really pay attention to the titles of the rungs, as you can tell; they were all pretty dumb.

I had absolutely no idea what the significance of seeing this ladder in my mind was, but I had the feeling that I had to keep on working at it until the entire thing blazed with color. Until there were no more dark rungs. Maybe I should ask Gwen about it, next time I get the chance. She usually has a way of explaining confusing shit like that.

I stared at the mote of flame I'd conjured between my palms, and I smiled. A real, wide, genuine smile. I was happy. Words can't even express how fucking stoked this made me.

I can create fire.

I could be a real-life firebender. And if you don't know what a firebender is, that means you've never watched Avatar: The Last Airbender, and therefore you have no soul. But for those of you with souls…you'd be every bit as giddy as I felt right now if you suddenly were able to make your own fire.

Still, the giddiness had to take a backseat to sleep. And luckily, during my travels with Scales, I'd learned the art of being able to fall asleep whenever and wherever I wanted. Even after learning the secret of Force Aspect-channeled pyrokinesis, I was still able to recognize the fact that I was going to need all the sleep I could get. Scales was going to be pushing us hard tomorrow. We'd be able to catch up with the herd if we were fast.

And besides…it's not like my powers were going anywhere. I'd still be able to firebend tomorrow.

I found a nice, comfy patch of ground right in front of the giant baobab tree we'd stopped under, and I curled up for the night. I found that listening to the gentle pattering of the rain was probably one of the reasons I was able to fall asleep so easily.

Today was the day.

Well, yesterday was going to be the day, originally, but I'd woken up before I actually got the chance to follow through with my plans. So now, as I said, today was the day. The day I was going to leave.

I was going to miss Prospit. Really—I've had some of the absolute best times of my life on this golden city-planet. But I felt it was time for me to leave. Time for me to stop smoking and fucking around, and actually try and be useful.

I woke up to the familiar sight of my dream room's green ceiling. I wondered if this was the last time I'd ever see it. Before heading over to my window, I went to my desk and retrieved my iphone from the drawer. I always kept my iphone in my drawer, and that seemed to carry over to my dream room, as well. My real iphone was lying around in my house, somewhere, back on my planet…but the dream version of my iphone would work just as well. I just needed to have some way of contacting the others, because my waking self was completely cut off from technology.

Now that I had my iphone, I stepped up into one of my windows and gently rose up into the sky above my dream tower. I hovered there in midair for a few minutes, gazing out over the golden moon. I could hear the Prospitians down on the streets, pointing up and murmuring amongst themselves. Every time they saw me, Cruz, or Tami, they would get all excited.

Maybe they got excited when they saw Anna, too. I wouldn't know—none of us have heard anything from her since this whole thing started. It was as if she just vanished into thin air. Her dream self, too; every time Cruz and I checked out her dream tower, it was always empty. She was gone. Yeah, I was all broken up over that.

But enough of those thoughts. Time to fly.

While dream selves can fly of their own volition, I used my Aspect to propel me along much faster than I would've been able to otherwise. I flew higher and higher up into the sky, until I was no longer in Prospit's sky. I passed into outer space, leaving the Kingdom of Light far behind me. The brilliant, blue-white light of Skaia grew closer, and the soft, satin-like warmth of Skaia's radiance began to feel like it was enveloping me, rather than merely shining down on me.

It took me nearly twenty minutes to reach Skaia. It honestly depended on how close the golden moon was to Skaia—today, the moon was pretty far off from its Eclipse position, when it would actually pass through the upper reaches of Skaia's atmosphere. Because of this, the journey from the golden moon to Skaia was a bit of a lengthy one. Before long, the burn of high-velocity wind began to tear across my face, and I found myself zooming through giant blue-white mountains of Skaian clouds.

The first Skaian cloud I flew through left me slightly soaked, so I was careful to go around every other cloud that crossed my path. Luckily flying through the Skaian atmosphere wasn't freezing me to death like flying through Earth's would. I was dry within a minute, but it wasn't something I wanted to repeat. I could see snippets of visions in some of the clouds, but I was flying way too fast to actually get a good look at what they were. I stopped using my Aspect to augment my speed, now relying solely on the flight ability of my dream self.

As I looked down towards the ground, I noticed that the earth was colored very, very strangely. I guess it kind of tied into the whole 'chess' motif that the Prospitians and Dersites seemed to follow. The Battlefield. That was the name of the planet at the very center of Skaia, beneath all those strange, prophetic clouds. And it looked like a planet-sized chessboard.

The ground was a patchwork of giant, black and white alternating squares. I mean, it was regular dirt, just like back on Earth…only it was colored black and white, instead of brown, and arranged in a chessboard pattern. These squares were pretty big—each one was probably five square miles in size. The chessboard pattern of the ground was broken by rolling hills and sparkling blue rivers, though; it was by no means a perfect, flat surface. In many places, the black or white earth was partially, mostly, or completely obscured by grass. Trees dotted the landscape, as well. There were forests on the Battlefield, but this particular region did not have any thick woods—just the occasional evergreen.

There was a light wind about this area. A soft, warm summer breeze. I wondered if the planets of the incipisphere experienced seasons—everything always seemed to exist in a constant state of late spring, early summer. No complaints from me!

Oh, right, I almost forgot to mention the fact that there was a slaughter happening below me on the ground. There had been three large, yellow, truck-like vehicles. I think they'd been supply trucks. Right now, they were half disintegrated and still on fire, releasing three giant pillars of acrid, oily smoke into the air, carried off on a slanting angle by the gentle breeze. The remains of dead Prospitians littered ground around the three destroyed vehicles, staining the white earth with their blood.

The convoy had been ambushed by a force of the ebony-skinned carapacians from Derse. They looked exactly like the Prospitians, only inverted. Their carapaces were dark as midnight, but their eyes were white. These guys meant business—they were armed to the teeth, wearing heavy gray helmets, armored vests, and combat boots. Some of them wielded gray energy rifles of some kind—they almost resembled the World War II-era M1 Garands, complete with bayonets, and they also appeared to be semi-automatic, firing fat slugs of crackling purple energy. The riflemen hung back on the top of a ridge, laying down fire on the surviving Prospitians in the gully below.

The rest of the Dersites wielded shorter-length swords and large shields that reminded me of the ballistic shields used by riot police. These melee combat oriented Dersites were right in the thick of things, taking down the desperate, disorganized survivors of the Prospitian supply convoy one by one. They functioned as a team, steadily and methodically cutting down any Prospitian who charged them.

As for the Prospitians… They were pretty much screwed. None of them had rifles, and only a handful of them wore armor. The ambush had completely wrecked any semblance of organization the Prospitians may have had. If anyone had been in command of the supply convoy, he or she was most certainly dead. A good number of the Prospitians must have died in the opening shots of the ambush, and the survivors were no doubt still in some form of shock.

I guess they could use a little help. I mean, the Prospitians wanted to stop Derse from destroying Skaia…and we certainly don't want Derse to destroy Skaia…so, following that reasoning, the Dersites were the ones I was supposed to be fighting. Still, I couldn't help but wish that the Prospitians were the badasses with the rifles and shields…

The fighting ceased for a brief moment as the carapacians all looked up and saw me dropping out of the sky. I could imagine what was going through their minds—one moment they're doing the whole war thing, then the next there's a random kid in yellow pajamas falling out of the clouds like a fucking idiot.

Then the Dersite riflemen started trying to shoot me down. When I thought about it later, I guess that made sense. They had to know that I was one of the eight Heroes…and if they had the chance to kill one of us, they'd sure as hell take it. I swerved off to the side as the energy slugs began to hiss and sear through the air around me. I could even smell the tangy, ozone-like odor of some of the slugs that came really close. I was really glad those energy rifles weren't fully automatic, or I'd be-

"FUCK!" I screamed as I felt one of the energy slugs graze across my left side. As I reflexively threw myself out of the way, I saw that there was indeed an automatic energy weapon. In fact, it was more than that. The Dersites had a fucking tank hidden in the foliage that covered the top of that ridge. It was a purple contraption that slightly resembled a German Panther tank. I could now see how the three Prospitian supply trucks had been blown up like that—I wouldn't want to be on the receiving end of that Dersite tank's main cannon. The automatic energyfire that had nearly fried me was coming from the tank's mounted machinegun turret, manned by a Dersite whose head and shoulders were sticking up out of the cupola. He was the tank commander, presumably.

I was originally intending to land behind one of the burning wrecks of the Prospitian supply trucks, but my near-miss with the Dersite tank's energy turret sent me spinning off-course. Instead, I ended up heading straight down towards the top of the ridge. Luckily, although I wasn't able to access my sylladex, I was able to access my strife specibus while I was dreaming, so I was able to retrieve my Roman Bowie.

I didn't really need it, though. I hit the ground running, never giving the Dersites a stationary target to shoot at. Even as I sprinted forward, I used my Vis and swept a pair of the ebony-skinned carapacians over the edge of the ridge, sending them tumbling down into the gully. I then turned to face the rest of the rifle-wielding Dersite soldiers, holding out my free hand. I could feel the energy slugs from their weapons searing through the air.

A week or two ago, I probably would have tried to stop those energy slugs in midair. But they moved almost as fast as bullets—I'm good, but I'm not that good. Instead, I simply gave them a slight 'nudge', deflecting them away from me. This took a lot less energy than actually stopping them.

I cleared the distance between me and the Dersites with a powerful jump. I'm my dream self right now, remember; I can still fly. I brought my slightly-oversized knife down into the chest of the first Dersite rifleman to cross my path, ignoring the gasp of pain the carapacian gave as he crumpled to the ground. I then dropped my Bowie, sending it back to its strife specibus, and I picked up the Dersite's energy rifle. He wouldn't be needing it, any longer. By then, the rest of the riflemen had wised up to my sudden presence, and they were beginning to lay it on thick. This wasn't good—with this many energy slugs coming my way, it was only a matter of time before one of them got past me and did some real damage. That's why I decided to fight fire with fire, and…

Actually, you know what? Forget whatever I was originally going to do. Time to fight fire with some real fire.

It's kind of ironic, when I think about it. When I go to sleep and wake up as my dream self, I'm always a lot more spacey, more laid-back and free-spirited. I'm asleep, after all, so it's not like I'm going to be completely wired and goal-oriented, you know? And yet I was always able to use my Aspect so much better when I was asleep than I ever could while awake. I didn't even have to try when I was dreaming.

I tried what I'd learned from Scales earlier today, conjuring a flame between my hands. Like I said before, when I use my Aspect as my dream self, I don't really need to think about it…the energy and ability was just there. The axe bit both ways, though; as I tore through the rest of the Dersite riflemen with giant blasts of flame, I could see that I was lacking a certain finesse. It was almost like I was trying to use Narsil to cut my steak—my dream self didn't have as much control over the Force Aspect as my waking self. By the time I was finished, I'd ended up burning down most the trees and foliage that covered the top of the ridge, sending even more smoke up into the sky.

I'd have to be a lot more careful in the future. If I'd been doing this with friends nearby… Best not to think about that.

I have to hand it to the Dersites—even though I was completely tearing them a new asshole, none of them ran away. They all stood their ground, clearly ready to fight to the death. I obliged them. And when the last rifleman fell, blood draining from a slashed neck, I jumped off the edge of the ridge, allowing myself to float down to the gully below.

Killing the Dersites felt different. I mean, with the underlings, I just felt like I was defending myself from a pack of wild animals. But I knew that the Dersites were sentient creatures. The carapacians were as intelligent as I was. They wanted me dead, obviously, so I had to do what I had to do…but it wasn't as easy as mowing through underlings was…

Eh, I'm sorry, I'm rambling again. I do that when I'm uncomfortable. Pardon me for not being able to slaughter intelligent creatures without feeling kinda off about it. Where the hell was my Sprite when I needed him? He'd have made short work of all these guys much faster than me. We can't all of us be psychopaths…

The Prospitian survivors had managed to rally while I was taking down the riflemen on the ridge. With the constant rain of energyfire from the ridge now silenced, the Prospitians were finally able to do jack shit without getting torn to pieces. I decided not to use any fire when I charged into the fray. If I repeated down here what I did to the Dersites on the ridge, I'd probably end up accidentally killing a few of the Prospitians, and that would unacceptable.

I discovered to my chagrin that the Dersite soldiers' shields were able to deflect the energy slugs, so I discarded the rifle I'd picked up and got my oversized Bowie knife back out. Back to basics. After dispatching my first Dersite soldier, I picked up his shield and strapped it to my left arm. I'd only used shields a few times during my strife bouts against my Sis—usually by 'shield' I meant the lid of one of the big outside garbage cans—but I was pretty good with them. I just rarely used them because they don't go very well with knives.

But when I'd combined my Bowie with the properties of a Roman gladius, it had gained a bit of a length increase. It was now almost two feet long, which was a much more manageable length for use with a shield. And the ballistic shields used by these Dersites were incredibly light—I could hold this thing up all day long without getting tired.

After I made my grand entrance into the melee and disrupted the organization of the Dersites' methodical approach to finishing off the remaining Prospitians, they all recovered from their initial surprise and started going after me. I blocked a strike that was aimed at my neck, raising my shield to take the force of the blow. I smashed the ebony-skinned carapacian in the face with the shield, running him through with my knife as he staggered back.

The breeze began to pick up, but I barely noticed. I was in the zone, now. Kill or be killed.

Another Dersite attempted to gut me from behind as I killed her friend, but I sent her flying with a powerful push from my Vis. She slammed headfirst into one of the supply truck wrecks, her neck bending at an impossible angle with a sickening snap.

A good number of the remaining Dersites ganged up on me then, and I was forced to go on the defensive. At least I wasn't getting peppered with energy slugs, again. Swords I could deal with. Rifles, not so much. I kept the Dersites at bay, resisting the urge to completely go ballistic with fire once again. Sometimes I would spot an opening in one of my attackers' guards, and I would be able to draw some blood.

Then the Dersites withdrew. Just like that, they disengaged me and started running their asses away. I flipped the double bird at the retreating Dersites, hollering insults after them as they absconded. Then the world exploded.

Damn it all, I'd forgotten about the Dersite tank…

The energy blast from the main cannon of that tank tore into the ground near where I'd been standing, close enough to send me flying through the air. I flipped head over heels several times, barely managing to right myself and soar back into the air before I hit the ground and broke my spine, or sustained some other equally painful and crippling injury. Dream selves definitely have perks.

I set foot back down onto solid ground and staggered through the tall grass, looking up at where the Dersite tank was positioned. Its main cannon was swiveling round, trying to get me back in its sights. Uh-uh. When it comes to getting shot at by tanks, I'm not a big believer in second chances. Still, maybe there was a way to handle this situation without running circles around that tank. The key would be timing.

I started walking towards the tank. I don't think the Dersite who was manning that main cannon expected me to start moving suddenly in his direction, so he had to continue to adjust the cannon's aim. The main cannon fired a second time, but I saw this one coming and dodged, quietly beginning to count under my breath.

The main cannon roared a third time when my count reached five. I did two things when the Dersite tank fired at me for the third time. First, I started the count once again; and second, I redirected the incoming energy shell with my Aspect. I sent it crackling over my head, where it continued to fly up and away into the sky until it vanished among the clouds.

I jumped into the air and started flying back towards the ridge as fast as I could. I guess I didn't need to be very close for this, but it certainly wouldn't hurt my chances for success. As long as I kept the count…

The moment I hit four, I clapped my hands together. I could feel the raw power of my Aspect within me, and it felt good. I focused on the main cannon as I clapped my hands together, focused on crushing all that sturdy, purple metal. The end of the Dersite tank's main armament crumpled in on itself right as it fired for the fourth time…causing the energy shell to explode within the cannon.

I remember feeling a distinct lack of envy for the Dersite tank crewmen as the purple vehicle brewed up in flames, sending yet another column of oily smoke into the sky, adding to the smoke already gushing skyward from all those fires I'd accidentally set on the ridge.

Whew, that was a workout. I fanned myself off by pulling at my shirt several times, wiping the sweat from my forehead. I was glad there was a strong breeze blowing through the area—anyone who's done any kind of strenuous activity in the outdoors understands how good the wind can feel.

"You guys alright?" I made my way back over to the remains of the supply convoy. Five Prospitians had survived the ambush, and of those five I think only four were actual soldiers. The fifth was a shorter, smaller guy with a light blue cap instead of a helmet. He didn't seem to know how to use his sword very well. He must have been one of the truck drivers. I glanced at the three burning wrecks once more, marveling at this guy's luck.

I think they were all pretty shell-shocked. Or dumbfounded by the sudden arrival of one of their Heroes. Or, more likely, an even mix of both. Either way, none of them were able to find their voices. They just stared blankly. When I tried to get their attention again, I noticed that they weren't actually looking at me, anymore. They were looking at the sky.

Suddenly, the breeze exploded into an all-out gale-force wind, completely flattening the tall grass on either side of the dirt road. I was nearly blown off my feet by the force of it. The wind blanketed the entire area, swiftly extinguishing the fires that I'd accidentally started on the top of the ridge…and then it vanished.

"Up here, Force-man!"

The startlingly familiar voice had called out to me from above. I looked up to the sky, and my jaw nearly dropped. There was a guy floating in the air, held aloft by the breeze, who I didn't recognize at first. He was dressed entirely in blue. A blue shirt with an odd, swirly symbol emblazoned on the front, as well as a kilt with an additional length of fabric that was swept up behind his shoulders, complete with a hood.

This dude had dark brown skin and and bright, friendly blue eyes…but his fledgling afro had been shaved off, and he was now sporting facial hair, Benjamin Sisko-style. He'd also dropped a couple pounds—well, more than a couple. He looked so much different than what he'd looked like the last time I'd seen him, several weeks ago.

"Theo?"

My friend flashed me a wide smile. "This Windy shit's cool, ain't it?"